Phillies waste strong outing by Alec Asher

MIAMI -

The early returns on Alec Asher, one of six players the Phillies received in the July trade that sent Cole Hamels to Texas, were not promising.

In his first four major league starts entering last night at Marlins Park, Asher allowed 21 earned runs on 30 hits in 19 1/3 innings. That's an average of just over five runs per game in less than five innings per start.

Not surprising, the Phillies lost all four of those games. Asher entered the the penultimate start of his 2015 season sporting an 0-4 record and a 9.78 ERA.

No matter what Asher's projections were as a prospect in the Rangers system - he was the only of the five prospects in the trade who wasn't listed in Baseball America's top 30 of Texas's minor leaguers last winter - it probably would be unfair to adjust them after four major league starts. As the stat-friendly community would say: small sample size.

But Asher and the Phillies management would surely like to see something positive before they part ways for the winter, and that's exactly what both parties got last night.

Asher took a shutout into the seventh inning in the Phillies' 1-0 defeat to the Marlins. The Phils' bats were unable to support the rookie righthander, managing only five hits - two coming from the pitcher himself.

"I might get him in the lineup (tonight)," manager Pete Mackanin joked of Asher, who had the Phillies' only extra-base hit, a one-out double in the fifth inning.

"The whole trip, our pitching has been really good, with an exclamation point on Asher tonight," Mackanin continued. "Boy, he finally broke out and had a real nice game . . . Unfortunately, we couldn't mount any offense."

After allowing only four baserunners through the first six innings - on a single, a walk, a hit batsman and an error - Asher allowed back-to-back one-out hits in the eighth inning and it was enough for the Fish to sink the Phils. Derek Dietrich singled and scored the game's only run when catcher J.T. Realmuto followed with a triple into the right-center gap.

The Marlins nearly tacked on another run, but rightfielder Brian Bogusevic threw Realmuto out on a sacrifice fly attempt - with help from burly catcher Cameron Rupp - to thwart Miami's rally and end the inning.

But even a deficit as little as one run felt insurmountable for a Phillies offense that's experiencing whatever the baseball equivalent of senioritis is at the end of a season. After losing an 8-7 game to Washington in 11 innings at Citizens Bank Park two Mondays ago - the night Ryan Howard left with an injury and Jonathan Papelbon blew a save - the Phillies have scored a grand total of 14 runs in their last eight games.

Last night loss marked the 13th time this season the Phillies have been shut out. But they've also been held to one run or fewer in 33 of their 153 games thus far, including in seven of their last 14 games.

As a whole, the Phillies' offense is hitting .190 in that 14-game stretch.

"I think some of the guys are fatigued, even if they are young," Mackanin said, referring to Odubel Herrera as an example of a player playing in the first September of his professional career.

Mackanin has been bemoaning the slow bats of his young offense for more than a week, suggesting his green lineup has hit a wall. They have nine more games to break through that wall, beginning this weekend in Washington, where they'll be matched up against a Nationals team that has outscored the Phils, 121-74, this month.

"I think everyone is getting tired," Mackanin said. "And the more you lose, the more beat up you feel. The energy is still there, but it's hard to generate extra energy when no one is on base."

The offense has been hardly fun to watch, but at least Mackanin saw some an encouraging performance from Asher in the 23-year-old's fifth big-league start.

"He made better pitches," Mackanin said. "He located on both sides, he changed speeds pretty well. He looked like he was a little more confident out there. Some guys, it takes longer to feel comfortable. I'm hoping that's the case for him. He looked comfortable out there and he looked aggressive, like he was in charge. That was a good sign."

After pitching into the sixth inning in only one of his first four starts, Asher put himself in position to pitch deep last night by retiring nine of the first 11 batters he faced. Only two Marlins reached scoring position in the first six innings.

"I feel, with each start I've taken, I've built up more confidence," Asher said. "That was the main thing coming into this game. I said I was just going to go back to pitching my game, attack hitters and not give them too much credit."

"It shows me a lot that he came out there with a purpose," Mackanin said. "That's what the whole deal is about when you get to the big leagues: Either you fight and you make it or you give up. Obviously, he's not giving up, he's going after it. That was the thing I saw the most out of him."

The loss was the Phillies' 96th of the season. One more and they'll match the total of the woeful 2000 team; no Phillies team has lost more than 97 games since 1969.